Amazon FBA Tips: Brand Compliance Issues

Recently I was contacted through the Amazon Buyer Seller Messaging system with a request to remove a product that I had a listing for. They asked for a bunch of information along with a demand to stop selling the product. The message came from a buyer named (brand here) Compliance, making it look like it was from the compliance department of the brand. Here’s a copy of the email:

ABC Industries, LLC (I changed the name here), is the exclusive authorized representative of the (ABC Product) trademark in the United States. In addition, ABC Industries, LLC provides all warranty services for the products sold by authorized resellers of ABC products in the United States. As part of its due diligence, ABC Industries, LLC confirms the origin of each and every product sold by the Company. Accordingly, no reseller of ABC products may market or otherwise distribute, sell or offer to sell any ABC product without ABC Industries, LLC’s written permission. Because you are not recognized as an authorized ABC retailer or distributor in the United States, we hereby demand that you remove all ABCt brand products twenty-four (24) hours of this letter. Additionally, we hereby request that you forward ABC Industries, LLC the following information concerning your activities:

– Source of goods;

– Identity of goods sold; and

– Quantity of goods sold.

If you do not purchase from ABC Industries, LLC directly, your distributor needs to contact ABC Industries, LLC on your behalf to inquire about your authorized status. If you purchased the merchandise directly from ABC Industries under a different name you are to contact our E-Commerce Assistant Manager at 555-555-5555 ext. 555. If you purchased it through an authorized distributor you will need to contact this distributor and only this distributor should contact the E-Commerce Assistant Manager. Kindly confirm that you will refrain from distributing, selling or offering to sell ABC product withoutABC Industries, LLC’s written consent by emailing the undersigned compliance team within twenty-four (24) hours of receiving this message. Provided you comply with the foregoing request and confirm proof of authorized status, ABC Industries, LLC will not pursue this matter further. Should you choose to continue selling ABC products without the permission of ABC Industries, LLC, we will be forced to pursue this matter further.

Thank you.

The ASINs in question that you are currently offering are listed below: B000xxxx0x (obviously changed this too)

This wasn’t the first time I have received an email like this, however it did concern me a little. I thought if a company had a problem they would try and shut down all of the sellers directly through Amazon. Yeah, I’ve had that happen.

I did nothing, then I received another email. I would hate to jeopardize my account so I decided to contact Amazon to find out if the message could be legit. Basically it’s not. Here are a few comments from the chat I had with an Amazon Rep:

Me: I received an email from a customer claiming to be from the compliance department of a brand requesting a bunch of information about where I sourced a product and requesting I stop selling it. It seemed sort of suspect. Is there a way to verify that the request is legitimate?

Amazon Rep:May I ask on where did you receive the email? Is it on your personal email or on your Buyer-Seller Messaging Feature?

Me: On the buyer seller messaging feature.

Amazon Rep: Thank you for sharing your concern. I would like to inform you that our Seller Performance and Product Compliance team will only notify you through your Performance Notification. You will also be notified through your email. If the email doesn’t appear on your Performance Notification, that means it didn’t come from Amazon.

You can disregard the email that you have received from your Buyer-Seller Messaging Feature.

It was nice to know the answer. It’s hard to believe that there are some people out there that are so desperate to make that extra buck they try and scare other sellers off. The funny thing was that my listing was not even close to the buy box for this product. There were well over 20 sellers of the same product and at the time my listing was on the second page of seller offers. Don’t fall for this if it happens to you. If there is ever a question just contact Amazon. For the most part they are always willing to help and usually can get you an answer to your FBA sellers questions quickly. Just remember on stuff like this, verify. There are a lot of scammers out there in the world who will try almost anything to get a little advantage.

Dave Ramsey, a popular financial guru, teaches people to become financially debt free while they take control of their personal finances. While in his 20’s Dave reached that elusive million dollars in net worth, but...